Dr. Max Berg, 92

May 10, 2002

Dr. Max Berg, 92, a longtime Chicago doctor who served as a medical expert and medical-legal adviser during the Nuremberg war crimes trials, died of heart failure Friday, May 3, in Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Dr. Berg, who ran a practice on the South Side and later in the Loop, was also a clinical professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, an attending physician who managed two wards at Cook County Hospital and a gastroenterology researcher for University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center and Michael Reese Hospital. He also served as president of Woodlawn Hospital as well as chief of staff at Woodlawn and Englewood Hospitals. Born and raised in Chicago, Dr. Berg graduated from Hyde Park High School and earned a bachelor's, medical and doctoral degree in pathology from UIC. He enlisted in 1942 in the Army Air Forces and, after working at numerous different medical bases around the country, was sent to Europe as a war crimes pathologist for the first 16 months of the trials, his family said. His job was to investigate the deaths of Allied soldiers killed in World War II to determine whether a war crime was committed. Dr. Berg rarely spoke of his duties during and following the war. Dr. Berg is survived by his wife, Sylvia; two daughters, Rachel and Judith; and a sister, Eleanor Meyer. Services have been held.